The second phone line was broken. I waited around the house all yesterday for someone to come and fix it, but no one did. The day ended in a frenzy of recriminations and being put on hold. This morning a repairman came and told me that the alarm system had taken over my second line, and I asked him if he could route around it, and he said he could, if I didn’t mind disabling the alarm system. So we disabled the system.

At first I was happy that my problem was solved and that it didn’t involve someone telling me that mice or rats had chewed through the lines, because we have mice and rats in the house and they make me crazed and ashamed. Sometimes the mice and rats die in the walls and smell and once I am sure that the dead thing is in the wall and nowhere I am going accidentally to find it I am pleased by the smell of something rotting, because I know that at least one of them is dead. I found out recently that the previous owners had five cats and I feel ashamed, as well, that we can’t have cats, because we are allergic to them. I thought briefly about the new crazy hypoallergenic cat, but you don’t know you’ll get a good mouser, and they cost $6,000. And there’s a waiting list. And ideally I would want more than one. I also thought about a terrier, because some terriers are good at killing rats. Right now we’re using a lot of poison, but I feel like these other methods would be better. I don’t know why I think that.

Anyway, then I realized that we don’t have an alarm system anymore and someone I don’t know, the technician, knows that we don’t have an alarm system anymore, and I became worried for our property, and for our future sense of security at home.